H. D. Moore | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1981 (age 43–44) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Information security researcher andprogrammer |
| Known for | Metasploit |
| Website | hdm |
HD Moore is an Americannetwork security expert,open source programmer, andhacker. He is the founder of theMetasploit Project and was the main developer of the Metasploit Framework, apenetration testingsoftware suite.
Moore is currently the co-founder and chief technical officer of runZero, Inc,[1] a provider of cyber assetattack surface management software andcloud solutions. The company was originally founded in 2018 as Rumble, Inc and renamed to runZero, Inc. in 2022.[2]
Prior to starting runZero, Moore served as the vice president of research and development at Atredis Partners,[3] the chief research officer atBoston,Massachusetts-based security firmRapid7, and remained the chief architect of the Metasploit Framework until his departure from Rapid7 in 2016.[4]
Moore developed security software utilities for theUnited States Department of Defense as a teenager,[5][better source needed] and founded the Metasploit Project in the summer of 2003 with the goal of becoming a public resource for exploit code research and development.[6]
He is known for his work inWarVOX, AxMan, the Metasploit Decloaking Engine and the Rogue Network Link Detection Tools,[7] and started a "Month of Browser Bugs" (MoBB) initiative in 2006[8] as an experiment in fast-pacedvulnerability discovery withfull disclosure. This started theMonth of Bugs project meme, and resulted a number ofweb browserpatches and improved security measures.
Moore has discovered, or been involved in the discovery of, a number of critical security vulnerabilities.[9][10]
The Metasploit Framework is a development platform for creating security tools andexploits. The framework is used by network security professionals to perform penetration testing, system administrators to verify patch installations, product vendors to perform regression testing, and security researchers worldwide. The framework is written in theRubyprogramming language and includes components written inC andassembly language.[11] In October 2009, the Metasploit project was acquired by Rapid7.[12] While the Metasploit Framework continues to be free, Rapid7 has added commercial editions.[13] With the acquisition of the project, HD Moore becamechief security officer at Rapid7, and laterchief research officer, while remaining chief architect of Metasploit.
WarVOX is a software suite for exploring, classifying, and auditing telephone systems. Unlike normalwardialing tools, WarVOX processes the raw audio from each call and does not use amodem directly. This model allows WarVOX to find and classify a wide range of interesting lines, including modems, faxes, voice mail boxes,PBXs,loops, dial tones,IVRs, and forwarders usingsignal processing techniques.
AxMan is anActiveXfuzzing engine. The goal of AxMan is to discover vulnerabilities inCOM objects exposed throughInternet Explorer. Since AxMan is web-based, any security changes in the browser will also affect the results of the fuzzing process.
The Metasploit Decloaking Engine is a system for identifying the realIP address of a web user, regardless ofproxy settings, using a combination of client-side technologies and custom services. No vulnerabilities are exploited by this tool. A properly configured Tor setup should not result in any identifying information being exposed.
The Rogue Network Link Detection Tools are designed to detect unauthorized outbound network links on large corporate networks. These tools send spoofedTCP SYN andICMP Echo Requests with the original destination IP encoded into the packet, which can then be read back out by an external listening host.
Moore's work has gained him both praise and antagonism in the industry. Companies such asMicrosoft have credited him with discovering vulnerabilities, yet some criticism of Metasploit and similar tools, due to their capacity for criminal use (rather than just offensive security), has fallen upon Moore himself. Moore has been warned by US law enforcement about his involvement in the Critical.IO scanning project.[14]
Of course, being the industry's most famous white hat hacker also makes you a popular target